Because things are going uphill
01/03/2026
Sometimes I am amazed at the cars people choose from time to time. This is particularly piquant when I imagine that a whole army of marketing people once thought about who this or that car model was intended for. But the customers, the darned ones, buy differently after all.
I have examples in my own family: my dear mother-in-law once bought a second-generation Audi A3 to go shopping in the village. That sounds reasonable enough in itself. Only the fact that it had to be the big 3.2 V6 with all-wheel drive made me a little suspicious. What the American, former show host and passionate car collector Jay Leno jokingly cites as a reason for driving (absurdly) powerful cars - he lives in a hilly area - was cited by my mother-in-law as a serious reason for 250 hp in her shopping cart: It's uphill, it needs some power and in winter there might be a day or two of snow, so "quattro" is a must.
The former owner of our Studebaker, a 1962 GT Hawk that now belongs to my daughter, told a similar story. It was available with a 2.8-liter inline six-cylinder engine as well as two V8 engines with a displacement of 4.8 liters. You guessed it: the good lady chose the 4.8-liter with 180 hp so that her car could master the steep driveway to her house - which measures about 15 meters. Instead of "quattro", there was a piece of cast iron in the trunk - for better traction on snow.
However, I suspect that the real reason for the more powerful engine was the same in both cases: driving pleasure!
The photo is "of the same type"
